


Marbles

by The_Secret_Life_Of_Tea



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Autism, Autism Spectrum, Canon Autistic Character, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Neurodiversity, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 15:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17921876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Secret_Life_Of_Tea/pseuds/The_Secret_Life_Of_Tea
Summary: Just some autistic!Bucky, caring!Steve, and Tony, who learns what it means to be neurodiverse and less of an asshat (these things are mutually exclusive).





	Marbles

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Speaking in Star Wars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14922014) by [AutiFics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutiFics/pseuds/AutiFics). 



> New fic?? New fic! I want to try to adhere to an update schedule so I stop abandoning five left and right--let's try for Fridays and see how it goes.

Ever since Bucky returned, he’d been attracted to... things, Steve noticed. Things as in objects.

He loved cold things, heavy things, spinny things, interesting things; soon he had what Steve called “His Things Basket,” a small basket of objects he’d collected like a crow. 

The only thing was, sometimes these things weren’t originally Bucky’s. Often, he simply went to the others' rooms and picked up whatever he liked, pocketing it silently. Thank God the others were okay with Bucky's quirks... even when he'd once stolen a pair of Clint’s hearing aids. Steve had found Bucky rocking back and forth, shoulders hunched up in blissful concentration, as he stuck the hearing aids in his ears. His whole body relaxed as he did, and he flickered his fingers in a gesture Steve could not understand. 

In fact, Bucky did a lot of things that Steve didn't quite comprehend.

The thieving of other people’s things, he somewhat understood; after all, they both had to scrape by before the war, so every bit and scrap counted. But Bucky wasn’t taking things that were necessarily useful—no, quite the opposite. They were trinkets, baubles, fun to look at and interact with, but not pragmatic.

Or so Steve had thought. 

One lazy afternoon, when the sun was settling on the hardwood floor Bucky enjoyed laying on, Steve walked in to the sight of Bucky rolling a cat’s eye marble across the floor. The marble was jade green and semi-translucent. Bucky was absolutely transfixed. Steve figured that he could have lifted Bucky up by the hair and the man wouldn’t care a jot, as long as the marble kept trundling along the lines of the flooring.

Bucky sent the marble spinning, and a little giggle escaped him. Steve’s eyes went huge; Bucky hadn’t laughed since Steve had brought him home. He was careful to step around Bucky as he continued to bat the marble around. 

After seeing how relaxed and happy a simple marble made Bucky, Steve started to get it. That very night, as Bucky snuggled beneath the covers (and snored into Steve’s arm), he pulled up Google and plugged some search terms in. “Fixation with objects?” he entered in—yes, he put in a question mark to his Google searches—and watched as some key terms came up. 

After two hours of reading, a soft smile was lighting Steve’s face. 

He got it. 

***

***

Bucky’s smile could blind a room, Steve thought to himself, and he was taking the full brunt of it as Bucky beamed at him. Balanced in his hand, held reverently on his palm, was a miniature Captain America shield fidget spinner. 

It had some heft to it, as was made of a tiny little amount of vibranium; Tony had only been too eager to engineer what he called the perfect spinner. Its bearings were also vibranium, ensuring that it would spin for a solid three minutes if Bucky so chose. The star spun, as well, creating a mandala as it swirled. 

Even Steve, who’d been with his own shield forever, was coerced to admit to Tony that the damn thing was a perfect miniature replica. He’d enjoyed the blush on Tony’s cheeks, too, as well as the shy little head-duck he’d done. Praising Tony was always guaranteed to draw out a sweet reaction—hell, Steve might even consider it adorable, but he’d never say so out loud, not even under threat of torture. 

Anyways.

Steve had come in while Bucky was spinning the marble (the therapists had agreed that mindful “stim time” was very important to Bucky’s wellbeing and had structured it into his tablet’s visual schedule by putting a picture of a marble three times a day after meals) and laid down parallel to Bucky. In tranquil silence, they’d watched the marble stroll up and down the slight grooves of the flooring where the boards were joined. Sometimes Bucky batted the marble to make it streak across the floor, or other times he would roll it lazily from side to side. A little relaxed smile pulled at his lips, but it was tiny in comparison to Steve’s big golden-retriever grin. 

Steve cherished the times when Bucky was calm. He often had what Tony called “temper tantrums,” but were known now to Steve as meltdowns. He’d pick and pull at the skin of his scalp, sink his teeth into his organic arm, or smash his head into the first hard surface he could reach. 

Steve was learning slowly how to help him when these happened—he’d give him deep pressure by hugging him tight to his chest, simultaneously blocking out the light by cupping the back of Bucky’s head and holding him in place. His grip wasn’t restrictive, as Bucky could move anytime he wanted, but Bucky didn’t. He would just melt into Steve, sigh heavily, rub his fist on his own chest in apology, and retreat into himself for the remainder of the day. It damn near broke Steve’s heart.

When the timer on Bucky's tablet went off, signaling that he had five minutes left for mindful stim time, Bucky nodded his head at Steve. “Hi,” he murmured, voice soft. 

“Hey, pal,” Steve answered. “Feeling good today, huh? Bruce told me you’d managed a whole smoothie today.” 

The smoothies were good for when Bucky couldn’t take solid food. At first, Steve had figured that Bucky was simply being picky, but then he realized the texture of certain foods could upset him. So they mixed food and smoothies, testing out which textures he enjoyed. He would eat a gallon of jell-o if it was left up to him, Steve learned, watching in a sort of fond horror as Bucky inhaled six cups’ worth in twelve minutes. He also enjoyed crunchy things, but not celery. Celery was too stringy and it “felt like a wad of cud,” Bucky had told Steve. Accordingly, there never was another raw stalk of celery on Bucky’s plate.

Bucky gave a shy nod at Steve’s implicit praise, making the sign for “hug”. His face remained neutral; sign language was ridiculously helpful for Bucky, but he didn’t have the exaggerated facial expression bit down, and especially did not employ the eye contact native signers emphasized. But Steve got the gist immediately, opening his arms and smiling when Bucky crawled into his lap. They always ended mindful stim time with a deep pressure hug. It was arguably Steve’s favorite part of the whole thing; he loved the way Bucky settled against him, letting his full weight relax into his chest, the way Bucky’s breath evened out. Steve could almost hear the smile in Bucky’s voice as he rumbled happily, “Hi Steve.” 

Mindful stim time almost always resulted in Bucky going nonverbal, but again, this was something Steve cherished. The fact that Bucky was comfortable enough with him to share these parts of himself, the parts that society frowned upon for no good reason… it made Steve smile. He ruffled Bucky's hair firmly, and Bucky's fingers flickered against Steve's chest joyfully.

This was calm. This was Steve and Bucky.


End file.
